A National Park New Year's Resolution

Want to be one with nature in 2015? State your intention.

SPACE, PEACE, QUIET, JOY: Once upon a time people spent most holidays in nature as a matter of course. An evening stroll or a picnic or a visit to a neighbor through the woods was as natural as nature itself. But that's changed, for many, over the last several decades: Now we must schedule some some time in a forest, or the desert, or at the beach, and we very often do so when the new year rolls around. Call it a resolution to be outdoors more, or a commitment to not get quite as tangled in day-to-day errands, or view it as a wide look at the 365 days to come, but booking time with nature is something many of us do come early January. Now the National Park Foundation is making that commitment-stating rather easier, with a bit of inspiration and a few ideas from other people, courtesy of its National Parks resolution page.

IT'S SIMPLE: Just state on the page what you're going to do in the months ahead -- "Finally make it to the furthest Channel Island" or "get out to the Channel Islands for the first time" or "ice skate at Curry Village in Yosemite" or "watch a full moon rise in Death Valley" and publish it. You can also click a box for correspondence from the National Park Foundation, which supports many proactive programs and initiatives that honor and help our wildest treasures. And reading what other park fans are planning to do in 2015 is a definite gooser. ("Gooser" meaning one gets goosed to actually get out and go to the national parks.)

SO, WHAT WILL YOU DO IN 2015? There's lots to choose from on the resolution-making front: An upcoming dark-sky, telescope-nice event in Death Valley, the running of the waterfalls in Yosemite, all of those grand birdwatching months around Santa Cruz and the other Channel Islands...

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